June (Web-only) 2003 Commentaries Movies & TV

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What happens when you hire a poet to direct a comic book action movie? You get The Hulk, the most introspective and literary comic book movie to date. Audiences expecting to turn off their brains and sit back for another blast of mere eye candy may stagger out of this 138-minute epic wondering what hit them.

It sounds like an unlikely project to begin with: "From the director of Sense and Sensibility and The Ice Storm comes the story of a man transformed by anger into a raging green monster!" But Ang Lee's films have always had something to do with the difference between self-control and repression. Thus it is no surprise that The Hulk is more interested in the inner struggles of its characters than Spider-man, Daredevil, or even Tim Burton's tormented Batman films.

What is surprising about the film is Lee's inventive use of comic book framing devices. Instead of going for simplified imagery or an emphasis on primary colors, he turns the screen into a series of shifting frames that show us scenes from multiple perspectives. One scene leads to another with screen wipes that feel like turning a page. It's a wonderful, dizzying style, most of the time. But occasionally it becomes distracting, and later in the film it seems to disappear altogether.

But that is the only thing "comic" about the film. Lee asks us to take his characters seriously. His cast members convince us of the extraordinary things happening to them.

Eric Bana turns the temperamental Bruce Banner into a troubled adult who is afraid to unearth frightful repressed memories. But those memories hold the key to the secret of the monstrous transformation that comes over him when he gets angry. And what a transformation. The effects are sometimes awe-inspiring ...